Francesc Macià

Macià, Francesc (fränsāskˈ məsēäˈ) [key], 1859–1933, Spanish politician, Catalan nationalist leader. An army officer, he joined the separatist movement in Catalonia and was elected to the Cortes in 1907. Exiled briefly in 1917 for political activism, he returned to found (by 1922) the Catalan nationalist movement, Estat Català. He was exiled again in 1924. From Paris he directed an ineffective movement to establish a Catalan republic, plotting unsuccessfully an invasion of Catalonia (1926). After the fall of Primo de Rivera, he returned (1930) to Barcelona and became (1931) the first president of the Catalan republic. In 1932 he made an agreement with the central government at Madrid by which Catalonia was recognized as an autonomous region.